Like a clear sweet spring that nourishes the heart of a teenager

"The Teenager Who Cannot Be Forgotten - The Story of Ouyang Li'an": By He Jianming; Published by Hebei Children's Publishing House.

In the 21st century, the creation and publication of children's literature in the mainland ushered in a golden period of "blowout" development. In recent years, it has met the reading needs of the majority of young readers in many aspects, especially to tell the story of the growth and struggle of the red blood, cultivate young people's love for the party and the country, and become an important part of children's literature creation and publication work. Relevant theme works such as The Cowherd Baby Wang Erxiao, The Little Soldier Zhang Ga, and the Little Hero Yulai have been republished many times, and some new works have also focused on creating a new image of the young hero. The reportage "The Teenager Who Cannot Be Forgotten - The Story of Ouyang Li'an" is a new harvest of the current children's literature hero writing.

Heroes from ancient times out of youth. A strong youth is a strong country. Looking back at the history of the party's struggle, the International Division of the Young Communist Party, whose average age was less than 18 years old, who was invincible, and who heroically killed the enemy, the "greatness of life and the glory of death," and Liu Hulan, a 15-year-old Communist Party member who dedicated himself to the revolution, are all brilliant examples of young heroes. Ouyang Lian was also a young hero who could sing and cry, a Communist Party member who heroically sacrificed his life for the cause of the liberation of the Chinese people. He joined the party at the age of 16 and died at the age of 17, the youngest of the "Twenty-Four Martyrs of Longhua". After his unfortunate arrest, he faced torture to extract a confession, and he regarded death as a homecoming. He said: "I am a communist, even if my bones are turned to ashes, I am still one hundred percent communist." I die for the doctrine, for the people, and die without complaint!"

In the 1920s and 1930s, in Shanghai, the birthplace of the Communist Party of China and the cradle of the Chinese working class, the situation of the revolutionary struggle was cruel and changeable, and Ouyang Li'an used his status as a child laborer as a cover to serve as an underground traffic officer, relying on his fearlessness and agility to respond to danger, to transmit important information and progressive newspapers and periodicals of the Party Central Committee to the party's underground organizations and comrades. Shrouded in white terror, he walked through the streets and alleys, carrying out revolutionary struggles before the eyes of the enemy. Under the influence of revolutionaries such as He Mengxiong, Lin Yunan, and Long Dadao, he established a more ambitious communist ideal, joined the Communist Party of China, and sacrificed his life for the country and the nation. The revolutionary enthusiasm and progressive spirit of this small party member who was active in the front line of the revolution influenced many intellectuals who were eager for truth. Rou Shi, a major member of the Chinese Left-Wing Writers' Union, affectionately called Ouyang Li'an a "little teacher" and said in public that he had gained strength from Ouyang Li'an by participating in the revolution and knowing the Communist Party.

To write such a strong, witty and courageous young hero into the hearts of children, solid writing skills are needed. He Jianming, a reportage writer, used simple language to create a vivid and full image of a young party member: the liveliness and cuteness of catching dragonflies when he was young, the hunger and thirst for reading the "Communist Manifesto" influenced by his father, the courage and wit to help comrades pass on letters, and the unswervingness of joining the Communist Party of China... Writers pay attention to portraying the details of life, the characters have feelings and righteousness, and the narrative has thickness and temperature. In the writing, the writer naturally and cleverly blends in some fragments of left-wing literary classics. For example, when Ouyang Li'an was painfully depressed by the uncertainty of the future of the revolution, he recited Roushi's poems aloud, and the content of the poems appropriately reflected his state of mind at that time. However, such a detail processing has a certain threshold of understanding for readers, and it is not easy for young readers to understand the historical background at that time and understand the ins and outs of historical figures.

The writer has repeatedly visited the Shanghai Longhua Martyrs Memorial Hall and the streets and alleys of Shanghai to find the remains of the martyrs, dig deep into the story of the little hero, transform his short and glorious revolutionary journey into powerful words, outline the heroic appearance in the depths of history, and tell young readers a memory that cannot be forgotten, a history that makes people tear up when reading.

90 years ago, Ouyang Li'an shed his blood for the ideals and beliefs, for the motherland and the people; 90 years later, Ouyang Li'an came to us with a vivid literary image. I hope that this work is like a clear sweet spring, nourishing the hearts of young people, helping them inherit the red gene, and deeply planting deep feelings of loving the party, the country and socialism in the depths of the soul.

People's Daily (2022-01-21 20th edition)